Adding to the already plentiful numbers of prototyping tools available on the web for free, Codiqa is a recently launched interface building app which is based around the jQuery Mobile library set. If you aren’t already familiar with jQuery mobile as a developer – you should be. The library offers a unified, HTML5-based user interface system for all popular mobile device platforms, and contains the same awesome programming approach that you’ve come to know and love with jQuery.

If you aren’t yet convinced – take a look at some of the web apps already created using the library at the jQueryMobile Gallery – the results are impressive, and in many cases give a better experience than rival native apps.

Launching on the jQueryMobile site itself last week Codiqa provides drag and drop building of mobile interfaces within their application, allowing you to rapidly prototype your mobile site interface quickly and easily using the underlying jQuery Mobile libraries. This lets your designer get on with shaping the mobile UX experience, without needing any level of programming prowess.

As you would expect from a cloud based prototyping tool, Codiqa also provides collaboration tools out of the box, so you can save and access your projects anywhere and share it with team members, developers, and designers. Best of all, you can take your creation with you and download the exact HTML and javascript used to recreate your prototype, so front end development becomes even quicker.

As for pricing, initially there’s a 30 day trial available – with a $10 a month for individuals charge thereafter. Even if you intend to natively build a mobile application, Codiqa has its uses in the market, and provides a welcome addition to a designers arsenal of tools in the fight towards more universal and professional mobile experiences.

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The problem with codiqa is the pricing. It has greed written all over it.
They want $49/a month for a product that does very very little. That is for the “pro” version that looks nothing like a “pro” anything. Seriously limited as their greed knows no limits.

Consider this: You can subscribe to Adobe CS6 (plus Lightroom 4) for a monthly fee of $49.99, You get DreamWeaver, jquerymobile templates, you can build mobile apps, device emulators, you get Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Flex, etc, etc, etc… AND you can prototype. With codiga the only thing you get is a prototyping tool.

Darryl, I’m really sorry we gave you that impression. We are a two person team of recent college grads trying to make enough money to support full time development of the product. We want to make it better, so we charge so we can put more resources into developing it.

I think the biggest issue is that it does not seem valuable to you. That’s our fault and we need to change that. If you want to share your feedback through email you can ping me at max@codiqa.com.

Hi Max, even though I am not a developer I think what you are doing is great and you should not apologize for charging. Some people will love what you do and some won’t. For those who find your product valuable they will be ready to pay. I personally think Darryl is being rude and disrespectful in the way he puts his message across. It’s okay for him to dislike codiqa but not right for him to be abusive.

I like the interface and think it’s a good start. I found out about it through the jquerymobile website. I had already built some of an app that requires PHP and MySQL so I tried building the pages in codiqa. It seems like $24/month for an indie developer is kinda a lot for what it does. All it does it lay out the tags, you have to do everything else that takes 95% of the time. You have to write the PHP, make the MySQL tables, add the extra user interface effects, etc. So for $24/month I’d expect a little more than laying out tags and linking to some libraries.

It is a very slick looking tool – however I agree with Chris O with regards to price. I would have considered paying in the $10 – $15 range, but at $24 / month will opt for purchasing (outright) Handheld Designer instead.

Hi Paul, nice post. There’s a lot of great tools out there now for mobile app prototyping. If you want another option for a smart, fast way to create hi and lo fidelity mobile prototyping apps using just a drag and drop tool and then try it on your own mobile check out https://www.fluidui.com/editor/live/ Hope this helps! :)

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